Our event colors were white, lime green, with spotted fuchsia accents which were so us and oh-so summertime!  When our guests arrived they were greeted with champagne, micro-brews, and ice cold glass bottle sodas.  The pole tent was decorated with different sized paper lanterns, glowing lights, and a super cute handmade cardboard “Happy Birthday” sign.  The tables were set with a charger plate, full silverware, water goblet, and lime green linen napkins.

As you know from our previous post on Iceland Wedding Favors, we are big fans of dual purpose favors and this event would be no different.  After a few weeks of brainstorming we had decided we would DIY our 30th birthday favors make unique olive oil and balsamic vinegar sets for our guests (yummy dipping oil combo!).  We found some adorable 9 inch bottles, spent the time creating our own blends, and bottled them for our guests.  Before we placed a bottle at each place setting, we added a unique bottle place card tag on them that had each guests name on it in our event colors and also featured a note of gratitude to our guests.  Also on the table, you found centerpieces that followed suit with our lime green summery theme by incorporating tall vases, fresh limes, roses, mums, and strategically placed rhinestones.

Our event was catered by the fabulous Elite Catering from Livonia, Michigan.  We highly recommend them!  Our menu for the evening soiree follows below:

Appetizer: Pierogi Bar

Buffet Menu:

Michigan Salad

Honey Roasted Chicken

Sausage and Pasta

Roasted Potatoes

Peas with Mushroom and Onions

Dessert:  Strawberry Shortcake

A crazy twist to our party was Chris surprising me with a “Be Ann” photo booth.  Ha, yes a 20×30” basically life size canvas of me was made with my face cutout so all our friends and family could really “Be Ann” in a photo.  It was totally ridiculous!  Luckily great minds think alike and I had a trick up my sleeve too.  I had a few 8×10’s printed with Chris’s face on them and altered them just enough for everyone to have the pleasure to “Be Chris” too.

The other special part of our event was a hilarious game Chris came up with to play during dinner called, “Ann, Chris, or Mr. T.”  Oh yes, if you do not remember or know who Mr. T is you better Google him right now for a chuckle.  Believe it or not, there are actually some crazy similarities between the 3 of us that seriously tripped up our guests which proved to make it a rip roaring good time.

Chris usually asks me if I want anything special for my birthday.  My answer almost every time is always “You + Me = Couples Portraits.”  The session usually gets pushed out until the late fall on a random weekday evening but this time we actually were the closest we ever have to my birthday, yeah!  We chose our gorgeous downtown of Plymouth, Michigan as our location and spent a few minutes at the Daisy Air Riffle Factory (Circa 1886) for some romantically historic couples portraits.  If you love these images and would love your own engagement session here please contact us!

Such a fantastically fun event!  We hope you find yourself delighting in some of our details!  The majority of our details could easily be turned into Iceland wedding reception details so please contact us for more information on how to make that happen!  We are super excited to see what this next decade in our lives holds for us no doubt there will be endless adventures and gorgeous couples to photograph in Iceland.  We cannot wait to meet you!

With a smile, Chris & Ann Peters

Iceland Wedding Photographers and Iceland Wedding Planners

© 2002-2013, Photos by Miss Ann, All Rights Reserved

Please take a moment to check out our awesome vendors we had for this dazzling 30^th birthday:

Event Planning & Oil and Vinegar Party Favors: Iceland Wedding Planner

Lime and Roses Centerpieces: PBMA Rose Boutique

Catering: Elite Catering

Rentals: Canton Canopy

Photography: Photos by Miss Ann

Menu’s and Favor Labels: Pixels to Paper

Handmade Lime Green & Pink Happy Birthday Sign: Audriana Paper

Birthday Girl’s Dress: Stop Starring

Headpiece: Bat Cakes Couture

Birthday Girl’s Shoes: Poetic License

The post Event Planning: Our 30th Birthday Party! appeared first on Iceland Wedding Planner.

Hopefully you are aware that we are not only Iceland wedding planners, but we are also local and destination wedding photographers. In general we love, love especially capturing it in action.  So although we have a sweet spot for photographing Iceland weddings we do delight in shooting local weddings in Michigan too!

On Saturday, June 1^st, Chris and I had the pleasure of photographing Danielle and Jon’s wedding day.  When they first came to our home studio in Plymouth, Michigan to meet with us, they expressed how detailed they were.  Instantly, we knew we’d be a perfect fit since Chris and I are the same way!  We were so excited to tell the story of their big day, photograph the love between these two and all of the people who adore them!

The entire week before their wedding there were crazy thunderstorms, heavy rain, and even on the actual day the skies still threatened 70% chance of rain hourly.  So, what are a bride, groom, and wedding photographers to do?  Embrace it!  I think by embracing the chance, knowing rain on your wedding day is good luck, and being armed with umbrellas we warded off most of the rain.  Chris and I had a blast photographing their bridal portraits along the river at Bishop Park in Wyandotte and also at Cass Benton in Northville.  You can clearly see their tenderness for each other captured in their wedding photos!  Congratulations Jon and Danielle!

A few days after their downriver wedding, they sent us this wonderful note, reviewing Photos by Miss Ann’s services so we’d like to share it with you today!

“Hi Ann and Chris,
Jon and I wanted to get in touch with you right away to let you know how impressed and thoroughly pleased we were with the wonderful job you did for us on our wedding day.  You were both absolutely wonderful in every way imaginable.  From the very beginning for the getting ready pictures you were prompt and took initiative getting photos and working with little help or direction as to what was going on while the girls and I were busy.  Then you were right in the heart of all the chaos and moving around furniture, clothes, makeup, etc. to make sure you were able to take all our pictures.  You were so fun to work with and very positive, which just helped to put everyone at ease.  Also, thank you for doing such an awesome job at getting all of the pictures that we listed on our must have photo list that we gave you at the last possible moment- we really appreciate that. 

At the ceremony you were both great about moving around and taking multiple shots, while also being discrete and staying out of the mix of things.  For the wedding portraits, family shots, and bridal party shots you did a great job of giving direction and working around our smiling and blinking issues.  We really appreciated how well you managed everyone and got in so many pictures in such a short period of time. 

Your attention to detail was also much appreciated and certainly contributed to making the pictures as perfect as they could be.  We were also really impressed with how good you both were with navigating each different setting that we were in (i.e. you were on a ladder, moving around couples dancing, helping to hold the umbrella, etc.).  We also appreciate your flexibility in working with finding the best areas at the locations we wanted to take pictures at.  You had some really great ideas for pictures that we never would have thought of that were also a lot of fun as well. 

Throughout the entire day you were consistently very professional, upbeat, positive, and cheerful- you were pretty much every adjective that conveys a positive connotation.  So many people have commented to us at how good of a job you both did and how accommodating and helpful you were in taking requests for pictures and just doing an overall amazing job.  Jon and I just wanted to convey how much we appreciate you both being such a wonderful part of our special day and adding to our confidence and happiness that day.  Everything turned out so much better than we could have even imagined and you were both an instrumental part of that success.  We are so glad that we chose to have you photograph our wedding day.  We are truly confident that no one else would have done a better job for us!

Thank you both for all that you do,
Danielle and Jon”

Awwww!  We love and so appreciate our clients!  See Danielle and Jon’s gorgeous wedding photos below!  Enjoy!

With a smile, Ann & Chris Peters

Photos by Miss Ann (Local, Destination and Iceland Wedding Photographers)

Iceland Wedding Planner (Iceland Wedding Photographers & Planners Combined)

© 2002-2013, Photos by Miss Ann, All Rights Reserved

The post Photos by Miss Ann Review [Iceland Wedding Photographer] appeared first on Iceland Wedding Planner.